Norway took first place in Save the Children's annual ranking of the countries that treat mothers best. In compiling its 11th Mothers' Index[4], the charity analyzed such factors as access to health care, education and economic opportunities. Norwegian women were deemed well paid, possessing good access to contraception and entitled to government-mandated generous maternity leave.

The United States was considerably down the list, at No. 28, below Estonia, Latvia and Croatia, USA Today reported[5] May 4, dragged down by high rates of maternal mortality (1 in 4,800) and infant mortality (8 per 1,000), low pre-school enrollment (61 percent) and one of the least generous maternity-leave policies in terms of duration and pay.

In other motherhood news, the Pew Research Center found in a May 6 report on the latest statistics about motherhood that unmarried women giving birth in the United States has grown by 13 percent since 1990. The "New Demography of American Motherhood[6]" report compared birth data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau from 1990 and 2008. Approximately 40 percent of mothers giving birth in 2008 were unmarried compared to 28 percent in 1990. The study also found that mothers giving birth in 2008 were older than two decades ago and that proportion of teens giving birth had declined.